Tuesday, amidst the excitement of canceled classes, I scrolled through the Odyssey Online homepage and read an article that spoke to a place I have visited a lot lately. The article, 8 Ways To Be More Mindful Of What You Say, written by University of Alabama student Amanda Topolski, addresses several phrases that are said in casual conversation, but are by no means casual subjects.
Amanda's article covers subjects from eating disorders to mental illness, to suicide. All of these topics are very important, however, most of the time seem to be overlooked or used as a casual anecdote to explain feelings that a person actually isn't feeling.
Eating disorders: Calling someone anorexic, or making any other remark about their weight, is heart-wrenching. To overhear conversations poking fun or criticizing someone else for their weight is discouraging, to say the least. Everyone carries weight differently, metabolizes differently, and loses or gains weight at a different pace than anyone else. And that's okay. You never know what path someone is walking on; you never know what battle someone is fighting.
Mental health: One of my biggest pet peeves is when people joke about mental health. I have a few close friends who have suffered from a variety of mental illnesses, and they have shared their stories with me and opened my eyes to things I never realized, considering I myself have never gone through those type of experiences. Depression, mental retardation, and bipolar disease, to name a few, are things that affect a lot of people and can be taken very offensively if joked about out of context.
Suicide: Too many times I've heard someone say jokingly, "If I don't pass this test I'm going to kill myself," or, "Please kill me now," and neither of those statements, or ones similar, are not joking matters.
Each year, 44,965 Americans are lost to suicide. That's 44,965 family members, friends, husbands and wives, children, co-workers; 44,965 humans that believed they were not good enough. Why anyone would joke about that is beyond my level of understanding.
Homosexuality: Gay is not an insult. Simple as that.
We all slip up, say things we don't mean, speak without thinking. Bottom line is it's important to be mindful of what we say while around others. So, reader, I challenge you to not be the many, but instead to be the movement.